Maintaining strong schools by combining solid assignmnent and academic solutions
Positive parental and community involvement in School Board direction & policies
Increased High School graduation rates
Academics, social interactions, and community involvement that prepares our students for a global economy.
Equitable resources and education for all students.
Staying involved, informed, and engaged in the constantly changing and evolving Wake County Public School System is a challenge. To help us all stay on top of what's going on locally and around the world in education we send out a daily digest of Wake County, State, and National news in relation to education. To recieve this daily email
biggerpicture4wake is a community-based organization that supports common sense solutions that maximize efficiencies and educational opportunities for all students.
We are citizens, educators, professionals,and parents whose objective is to help us all stay informed,generate"solid ideas",and encourage citizens to participate and communicate constructively. We have all been drawn to live, learn, work,and conduct business in Wake County and believe in the strength of our public schools.
The best decisions for our community requires an inclusive voice to issues surrounding Wake County Schools and that is why we ask our leaders to look closely at the facts and data while listening to all our voices that makes Wake County one of the best places to live, work, learn, and play.
Hilburn Drive Academy
The new Hilburn Drive Academy, a combined kindergarten-through-eighth grade academy in 2012, will feature a curriculum infused with a 21st-century skills. It will be Wake County's first K-8 public school in decades. It is a member in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) Schools Collaborative Network. This school will also adopt the world language focus of the WCPSS Global Schools Network. Spanish and Manderin Chinese will be the languages offered.
The school will admit rising sixth-graders in 2012-13, followed by seventh- and eighth-graders in the following two years.
HDAcademy will operate on a traditional calendar.
Its bell schedule for all students will run from 8:05 a.m. to 2:50 p.m.
Bus transportation will be optimized so that future seventh- through eighth-graders may try out and participate in athletics through Leesville Road Middle.
— Adapted from "10½ Things No Commencement Speaker Has Ever Said," by Charles Wheelan. To be published May 7 by W.W. Norton & Co.
A version of this article appeared April 28, 2012, on page C3 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: 10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won't Tell You.
A few lessons young people really need to hear about what lies ahead.
1.Your time playing intramural sports, working on the school newspaper or just hanging with friends was well spent.Research tells us that one of the most important causal factors associated with happiness and well-being is your meaningful connections with other human beings. One benchmark of your postgraduation success should be how many of these people are still your close friends in 10 or 20 years.
2. Some of your worst days lie ahead. Graduation is a happy day. If you are going to do anything worthwhile, you will face periods of grinding self-doubt and failure. Be prepared to work through them.
3. Don't make the world worse. Don't use your prodigious talents to mess things up. Too many smart people are doing that already. And if you really want to cause social mayhem, it helps to have an Ivy League degree. You are smart and motivated and creative. Everyone will tell you that you can change the world. They are right, but remember that "changing the world" also can include things like skirting financial regulations and selling unhealthy foods to increasingly obese children. I am not asking you to cure cancer. I am just asking you not to spread it.
4. Marry someone smarter than you are. You will do better in life if you have a second economic oar in the water.
5. Help stop the Little League arms race. Kids' sports are becoming ridiculously structured and competitive. What happened to playing baseball because it's fun? We are systematically creating races out of things that ought to be a journey. Success isn't about simply running faster than everyone else in some predetermined direction. Yet the message we are sending from birth is that if you don't make the traveling soccer team or get into the "right" school, then you will somehow finish life with fewer points than everyone else. That's not right. You'll never read the following obituary: "Bob Smith died yesterday at the age of 74. He finished life in 186th place."
6. Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives.
7. Your parents don't want what is best for you. They want what is good for you, which isn't always the same thing. There is a natural instinct to protect our children from risk and discomfort, and therefore to urge safe choices. Theodore Roosevelt—soldier, explorer, president—once remarked, "It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed." Great quote, but I am willing to bet that Teddy's mother wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer.
8. Don't model your life after a circus animal. Performing animals do tricks because their trainers throw them peanuts or small fish for doing so. You should aspire to do better. You will be a friend, a parent, a coach, an employee—and so on. But only in your job will you be explicitly evaluated and rewarded for your performance. Don't let your life decisions be distorted by the fact that your boss is the only one tossing you peanuts. If you leave a work task undone in order to meet a friend for dinner, then you are "shirking" your work. But it's also true that if you cancel dinner to finish your work, then you are shirking your friendship. That's just not how we usually think of it.
9. It's all borrowed time. You shouldn't take anything for granted, not even tomorrow. I offer you the "hit by a bus" rule. Would I regret spending my life this way if I were to get hit by a bus next week or next year? And the important corollary: Does this path lead to a life I will be happy with and proud of in 10 or 20 years if I don't get hit by a bus.
10. Don't try to be great. Being great involves luck and other circumstances beyond your control. The less you think about being great, the more likely it is to happen. And if it doesn't, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being solid.
Good luck and congratulations.
Make-A-Wish grants Wake County student’s wish by feeding his entire school
April 26—Make-A-Wish of Eastern North Carolina granted Senior Rashawn King’s wish by serving lunch to about 1,900 people at Middle Creek High School. King, who has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, requested that Make-A-Wish feed lunch to the entire student body, faculty and staff to recognize the support that he has received from his high school since being diagnosed in June 2010.
“I decided to give back to those who helped me out and supported me so I decided to give my wish to the Middle Creek students and staff,” Rashawn King said.
The diagnosis sidelined King from the football and basketball teams during his junior year. He fought hard and returned to both for his senior year. At times King spent one day in chemotherapy and the next on the practice field.
His school community created a “Pray for Ray” campaign to show support and raise money for his family. King is now in remission.
“All of my life I have seen teamwork and I’ve seen selfless sacrifice but never before have I seen the kind of young man we have in Rashawn King,” said Superintendent Tony Tata
King is a national runner-up in the third annual Inspireum Football Awards which “celebrates inspirational young athletes who embody the values of character, courage, contribution and commitment through the sport of football.” As a runner-up, the 19-year-old received a $2,500 scholarship from the program. He plans to attend North Carolina Central University in the fall and hopes to walk on both the football and basketball teams.
